THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES 

PUBLIC HEALTH SERVICE 

CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION 

NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY AND HEALTH 

convenes the 

WORKGROUP TELECONFERENCE 

ADVISORY BOARD ON 

RADIATION AND WORKER HEALTH 

The verbatim transcript of the Meeting of the 

Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health 

Workgroup held telephonically, on Jul. 26, 2005. 
 

 

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C O N T E N T S 

Jul. 26, 2005 

WORKGROUP DISCUSSION 

COURT REPORTER’S CERTIFICATE 

6 

58 
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TRANSCRIPT LEGEND 

The following transcript contains quoted material. 

Such material is reproduced as read or spoken. 

In the following transcript: a dash (--) indicates 

an unintentional or purposeful interruption of a 

sentence. An ellipsis (. . .) indicates halting speech 

or an unfinished sentence in dialogue or omission(s) of 

word(s) when reading written material. 

-- (sic) denotes an incorrect usage or pronunciation 

of a word which is transcribed in its original form as 

reported. 

-- (phonetically) indicates a phonetic spelling of 

the word if no confirmation of the correct spelling is 

available. 

-- "uh-huh" represents an affirmative response, and 

"uh-uh" represents a negative response. 

-- "*" denotes a spelling based on phonetics, 

without reference available. 

-- (inaudible)/ (unintelligible) signifies speaker 

failure, usually failure to use a microphone. 

In the following transcript (off microphone) 

refers to microphone malfunction or speaker's neglect 

to depress "on" button. 
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 P A R T I C I P A N T S 

(In Alphabetical Order) 

BOARD MEMBERS 

CHAIR 

ZIEMER, Paul L., Ph.D.

Professor Emeritus 

School of Health Sciences 

Purdue University

Lafayette, Indiana 

EXECUTIVE SECRETARY 

WADE, Lewis, Ph.D.

Senior Science Advisor 

National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 

Washington, DC 

MEMBERSHIP 

GIBSON, Michael H.

President 

Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical, and Energy Union

Local 5-4200 

Miamisburg, Ohio

GRIFFON, Mark A.

President 

Creative Pollution Solutions, Inc.

Salem, New Hampshire

MELIUS, James Malcom, M.D., Ph.D.

Director 

New York State Laborers' Health and Safety Trust Fund

Albany, New York

MUNN, Wanda I.

Senior Nuclear Engineer (Retired)

Richland, Washington

ROESSLER, Genevieve S., Ph.D.

Professor Emeritus 

University of Florida

Elysian, Minnesota 
 

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OTHER PARTICIPANTS: 

ALLEN, DAVID, NIOSH

ANIGSTEIN, ROBERT

BERRY, MARY

BLOOM, CINDY, MJW

BROCK, DENISE, UNWW

CHANG, CHA CHA, NIOSH

DEVANNY, JOHN

ELLIOTT, LARRY, NIOSH/OCAS

ERLICH, DAVE, GAO

GUIDO, JOSEPH, MJW

HOMOKI-TITUS, LIZ, HHS/OGC

HOWELL, EMILY, HHS/OGC

KENOYER, JUDSON

KOTSCH, JEFF, DOL

MACIEVIC, GREG, NIOSH

MAKHIJANI, ARJUN, SC&A

MAURO, JOHN, SC&A

MCKEEL, DAN

NETON, JIM, NIOSH

NUGENT, MARY, GAO

SAMSON, BOB, GAO

SHEFFITS, SANDRA, GAO

SKALSKI, TED

SUNDIN, DAVE, NIOSH

TAULBEE, TIM, NIOSH

THORNE, MIKE

WESTBROOK, JANET 

STAFF/VENDORS

LASHAWN SHIELDS, Committee Management Specialist, NIOSH

STEVEN RAY GREEN, Certified Merit Court Reporter

JONICA MUELLER, Certified Court Reporter 
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 P R O C E E D I N G S

 (11:00 a.m.) 

(NOTE: Intermittently throughout the progress 

of the teleconference the telephone connection 

became less clear and quite fractured, making 

portions of some comments unintelligible. 

Those areas are noted as such.) 

 DR. WADE: I was going to make some 

introductory comments, Mark, and then really 

turn it over to you as the Chair of the working 

group, if that's okay. 

 MR. GRIFFON: That's fine. 

 DR. WADE: We're waiting just maybe another 15 

or 20 seconds. Is Denise Brock on the call? 

MS. BROCK: Yes, I'm here. 

 DR. WADE: Oh, okay. Welcome, Denise. Thank 

you for -- thank you for joining us. 

MS. BROCK: And thank you for having me. 

 DR. WADE: It's our pleasure. 

 MS. MUNN: Hi, Denise. 

MS. BROCK: Hi, Wanda. 

 DR. WADE: Okay. Well, let me begin again. My 

name is Lew Wade and I have the privilege of 

serving as the Designated Federal Official for 

the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker 

Health. By way of an overview, what we're 
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engaging here is a telephone meeting of a 

working group that has been established by that 

Advisory Board. 

I'd like to provide you with a little bit of 

context for the working group, just to keep 

roles and terminologies straight. The Advisory 

Board is currently working on two things -- on 

a number of things, but two as it relates to 

this call. The Advisory Board has before it 

an SEC petition on workers at Mallinckrodt and 

is deliberating on that. 

Simultaneously, the Advisory Board is looking 

at the review of a site profile for 

Mallinckrodt. This Advis-- this working group 

is really looking at issues surrounding the 

site profile and its review and a give-and-take 

that's going on between the Board, the Board's 

contractor SC&A, and NIOSH. There is no 

question that in the Board's mind these 

deliberations as they relate to the site 

profile will relate directly to issues related 

to the SEC petition. But I think it is 

important that we understand that the 

discussion, at least as it's framed going in, 

is looking at the issue and the technical 
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questions related to the site profile. 

 The working group was -- was designated by the 

Board and it includes Mark and Wanda, Mike and 

Jim, with Richard acting as an alternate. Mark 

was asked and graciously agreed to chair that 

working group, and it's the first call of that 

working group that we're here conducting today. 

I will take the roll in a minute of Board 

members present. Again, it is important that 

we not have a quorum of the Board itself. If 

we do have a quorum then we're conducting Board 

business, and this has not been advertised as a 

Board call. So I will be taking a roll of 

Board members in a moment. If we have a 

quorum, which is six or more, then I would have 

to respectfully ask some of the Board members 

on the call who are not members of the working 

group to leave us, and I do that with respect 

and apologies. 

We have decided -- the Board has advised and we 

all have decided that we would conduct this 

working group in a public forum. That is that 

the calls and meetings that the working group 

would conduct will be public meetings. We have 

allowed for no public comment period on this 
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call, although I would say respectfully if -- 

if a member of the public has a burning comment 

to be made, please feel free, although there is 

no public comment period scheduled and we're 

not -- we've allowed a couple of hours. We 

don't have time for long public comments, but 

certainly we don't want to stifle anyone. But 

I would ask that you be respectful of that 

situation. 

 We did announce this working group call in the 

Federal Register notice. We put it out on the 

NIOSH web site. We sent announcement to 

friends and those involved in this process. 

The Board in its deliberations also said that 

the SEC petitioners would be invited to this 

call and invited to fully participate, so it's 

important that those petitioners feel 

completely unconstrained in their 

participation, their questioning as it relates 

to this process as it unfolds. 

Now by way of materials that I know the working 

group has as background, at the last Board 

meeting the Board did put together a document 

that's pertinent to this call. That document 

is entitled "Priority Issues for Demonstrating 
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Feasibility of Dose Reconstruction for MCW 

Destrehan Street Workers for the Time Period of 

1949 to '57, List of Tasks Developed by the 

ABRWH", and that is dated July 6th, 2005. I'm 

under the assumption that all members of the 

working group have access to those materials. 

Let me read briefly from the beginning of that 

memo, and I -- I read now, quote (reading) The 

following is a list of tasks to be completed by 

NIOSH and delivered to the ABRWH workgroup and 

SC&A, Inc. for resolution. To allow for an 

adequate amount of time for SC&A/NIOSH/Board to 

complete comment resolution by August 23rd, the 

following schedule is set forth: 

Item: Working group conference call for status 

report and clarification of task by July 26th. 

I add parenthetically that that's this call. 

Next item: NIOSH will provide a draft report 

on the following tasks in consultation with 

SC&A by July 31. 

Item: Workgroup meeting between July 31 and 

August 8. Again I add parenthetically, it's 

terribly important we schedule that 

specifically on this call so that we can 

announce that meeting in the Federal Register 
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and the other mechanisms we've talked about. 

Item: SC&A to review the NIOSH response to the 

tasks and issue a report to Board by August 16 

(one week before Board meeting). 

And item: Workgroup conference call for 

comment resolution between August 16 and August 

22. 

I'll stop reading at this point because I think 

it's important to set the context for what the 

Board was asking this working group to do and 

the time frames, and much of this call is, 

again, for clarifying of issues and procedures 

and steps that we'll take specifically. 

So again, those conclude my introductory 

comments. Before I turn it over to the Chair, 

I would ask, though, at this point that members 

of the Board on this call identify themselves 

and just in any order you wish, please. 

 MR. GRIFFON: I'm Mark Griffon. 

 DR. WADE: Okay, Mark. Next? 

DR. ROESSLER: Gen Roessler. 

 DR. WADE: Gen. Next? 

 MR. GIBSON: Mike Gibson. 

 DR. WADE: Next? 

 DR. MELIUS: Jim Melius. 
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 DR. WADE: Next? 

 MS. MUNN: Wanda Munn. 

 DR. WADE: Next? 

 (No responses) 

 DR. WADE: Thank you. That's five, that is not 

a quorum. Again, if I hear another Board 

member join, I will take that role again and -- 

and will make the appropriate adjustments. 

Might I ask the NIOSH or CDC or Department of 

Labor representatives on this call to identify 

themselves? Again, this is Lew Wade. I work 

for NIOSH. 

DR. NETON: This is Jim Neton from OCAS. 

 MR. ELLIOTT: Larry Elliott. 

MR. MACIEVIC: Greg Macievic. 

 MR. SUNDIN: Dave Sundin. 

 MR. KOTSCH: Jeff Kotsch with --

 MR. TAULBEE: Tim Taulbee. 

MR. ALLEN: And Dave Allen. 

 MR. KOTSCH: I'm sorry, Jeff Kotsch with the 

Department of Labor in Washington. 

 DR. WADE: Thank you. 

MS. HOMOKI-TITUS: Liz Homoki-Titus with the 

Department of Health and Human Services. 

MS. CHANG: Cha Cha Chang with NIOSH. 
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 MS. HOWELL: Emily Howell with Department of 

Health and Human Services. 

 DR. WADE: Okay. What about members of the 

Board's contractor, SC&A? 

DR. MAURO: John Mauro. 

 DR. MAKHIJANI: Arjun Makhijani. 

 DR. ANIGSTEIN: Bob -- Robert Anigstein. 

UNIDENTIFIED: (Unintelligible) 

 DR. THORNE: And Mike Thorne. 

 DR. WADE: Okay. Petitioners involved in the -

- the Mallinckrodt petition that's before the 

Board, if they would identify themselves, 

please. 

MS. BROCK: Denise Brock, petitioner. 

 DR. WADE: Okay. Now if any other member of 

the public would like to identify themselves -- 

it is not required, but if you would like to 

identify yourself, please do. 

 DR. MCKEEL: This is Dan McKeel in St. Louis. 

 DR. WADE: Welcome, Doctor. 

MS. BERRY: Mary Berry of (unintelligible). 

 MR. SAMSON: This is Bob Samson from GAO, and 

I'm joined with Mary Nugent and Sandra 

Sheffits. 

 DR. WADE: Welcome. 
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 MR. ERLICH: This is Dave Erlich from GAO in 

Chicago. 

 DR. WADE: Welcome. Okay, Mark, that's the 

business that I felt compelled to do. It's all 

yours. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. 

 MR. KENOYER: This is Judson Kenoyer. There 

are other contractors to NIOSH that are on this 

call. 

 DR. WADE: I'm sorry, please identify yourself. 

 MR. KENOYER: Judson Kenoyer. 

 MR. SKALSKI: Ted Skalski. 

 MR. DEVANNY: John Devanny. 

MS. BLOOM: Cindy Bloom. 

MR. GUIDO: Joseph Guido. 

 DR. WADE: I apologize to you. 

 MS. WESTBROOK: Janet Westbrook. 

 DR. WADE: Okay, Mark. Please. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. Lew, you set this up 

nicely. This is a large workgroup. Anyway, I 

think mainly the reason we wanted this 

conference call was to touch base early on in 

the process to see whether the list of tasks 

laid out in this memo that Lew mention need any 

clarification or -- or there's -- there's 
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technical issues surrounding those tasks before 

-- we don't want to find out too late in the 

game, right before the advisory meeting, so 

that was the main reason for this -- this call, 

and also to look at a time line. And I think 

as Lew said, to select a specific date and time 

for that end-phase workgroup meeting, which 

will be next week some time. 

So I guess to start on the scope -- I mean I 

really think that it -- it -- I'll -- I'll turn 

the question over to -- to NIOSH, I guess Jim 

Neton, and ask if there's any questions on -- 

on the scope that -- that need to be addressed 

on this call. 

DR. NETON: Yeah, this is -- this is Jim Neton. 

I don't have any specific questions. I think 

that we -- we delineated the scope fairly well 

at the Board meeting. So really I don't have 

any significant questions to ask. I am 

prepared to do a report -- 

 MR. GRIFFON: Oh, okay. 

DR. NETON: -- a brief report on -- on some of 

the progress we've made, which I think is 

significant, although -- you know, I recognize 

we're under a tight time line so this -- what 
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I'm reporting is -- is fairly new, even to me 

as of this morning, but if you'd like me to do 

that, I can -- I can --

 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, definitely. 

DR. NETON: -- at least (unintelligible) where 

we're at. 

 MS. MUNN: Yeah, I'd certainly like that. 

 MR. GRIFFON: That would be good, yeah. 

DR. NETON: Okay. I'll just start from the top 

down, item one -- number one, which is the 

handling of the raffinate -- and by the way, 

anyone from -- from NIOSH and -- and/or ORAU 

team that's on here that, you know, can -- 

hears me say something incorrect or can flesh 

out a little more detail what I'm saying, 

please feel free. I -- I'm aware of what's 

going on, but some of the finer details are 

handled by -- by others who are on this call. 

 Regarding the raffinate exposures, we have 

researched to some extent trying to come up 

with ratios for -- for the -- the raffinate in 

greater detail than what we had in the profile. 

And it was suggested, and we agreed, at the 

Board meeting that the use of the Fernald 

ratios for the raffinate may be a good -- good 
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-- good point to look at -- a starting point, 

and we did that. It turns out that much of the 

raffinate that was in the Silo One at Fernald, 

if not all of it -- we're not exactly certain 

on this yet, but I'll -- most, if not all, 

originated from Mallinckrodt. And we have 

Remedial Investigation and Feasibility Study 

Analyses that were core samples taken 

throughout the silos, and we have those ratios. 

MS. BLOOM: Jim, can I jump in there for a 

minute? We --

DR. NETON: Cindy Bloom. 

MS. BLOOM: -- do have information that 

indicates that 75 percent of the waste came 

directly from Mallinckrodt from Fernald, and 

the other 25 percent we believe went to Lake 

Ontario Ordnance Works, and then went back to 

Fernald. And indications are that it is, if 

not all K-65 -- or all from Mallinckrodt, it -- 

certainly most of it is. 

DR. NETON: Thanks, Cindy. We also did -- that 

reminded me. We looked at the Lake Ontario 

Ordnance core data and we did not find any 

detailed isotopic information, but we did find 

ratio of radium to uranium -- or, you know, the 
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weight content of uranium. I think it was .05 

percent or something of that nature. 

 The Fernald data, being fairly recent, are -- 

are, we believe, quite good. There are 

isotopic analyses for the majority of the 

dosimetric contributors in the decay chain, and 

so we -- we propose -- or we will be proposing 

that we use those ratios for what's known as 

the K-65 or the gang cake or the lead sulfate 

cake -- whatever that precipitate was when they 

-- the first precipitate when they -- they 

pulled out the radium (unintelligible) barium 

(unintelligible) in the process. 

We have been looking high and wide for any 

information to support the Sperry cake -- 

 DR. MAKHIJANI: Before you -- Jim, could I ask 

a question? 

DR. NETON: Sure. 

 DR. MAKHIJANI: This is Arjun. You will 

propose that Fernald ratios from Silo One be 

used? 

DR. NETON: Yes. 

 DR. MAKHIJANI: Okay. Thank you. 

DR. NETON: And -- and we're still -- we're 

still in discussion about which value -- there 
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are -- there are median values, there are 95th 

percentile values, and of course we're not 

using the absolute activity content of those -- 

of those wastes, we're just using the -- the 

(unintelligible) of the isotopic contents 

themselves, the isotopes themselves. 

Sperry cake issue from that waste stream, we've 

been looking far and wide and we -- we have not 

yet been able to come up with any definitive 

data that would tie a uranium measurement in 

urine to a Sperry cake intake. It turns out 

that Sperry cake -- as we all know, 20 tons of 

it or so went to Mound. We've researched -- 

I've personally gone back and looked through 

all the Mound -- as many Mound records as I 

could and found very detailed radiochemical 

procedures that they published in peer review 

journals on the protactinium analytical 

techniques for that Sperry cake, but nothing 

that would flesh out the uranium amount. 

We do find a lot of evidence that the Sperry 

cake itself was a very wet -- pasty, to use 

their terms -- material, about 50 percent 

(unintelligible) and the rest is wet type 

waste, so it still indicates to us that this 
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material was not particularly prone to become 

airborne during the processing of it. But we 

still have some work to do there. I'd like --

I (unintelligible) locate some papers on 

isotopic analysis of protactinium 

(unintelligible) published (unintelligible) of 

Chemistry, so there's a few other sources to 

uncover there. 

The -- the (unintelligible) intake when we have 

these combinations of data -- and -- and Cindy 

Bloom could probably speak to this a little 

better, but I think -- like I said, I know at 

the Board meeting we indicated we would -- we 

would calculate -- if we had urine data, use 

the urine data to estimate intake, and then 

look at the air -- the corresponding air 

concentration data and pick whichever is the 

higher value for the intakes. In discussion 

among ourselves, we now believe that a more 

appropriate approach is -- when we have good 

urine data is to rely on the urine data itself 

for the intake, and then apply the ratios that 

were observed in the K-65 silos to come up with 

intakes, at least for what we would call K-65 -

- people who were exposed potentially to K-65 
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materials. 

MS. BLOOM: I would take a small step back 

there for a minute, Jim. I think what we 

talked about was using the uranium urinalysis 

data and the radon breath analysis results if 

we have both of those. If we don't, we're --

we're looking at using the Fernald ratios, but 

we're also looking at the available coworker 

data and we've done some preliminary results -- 

analyses that indicate that the Fernald ratios 

are really at the very, very high end of what 

might be an exposure, somebody who only worked 

with K-65. Based on the data we've seen so 

far, it looks like there is no such thing as a 

pure K-65 source term, that it's really a mixed 

source -- you know, people were exposed to 

uranium, that that was forever in the 

background, or that job rotation resulted in -- 

in changing those ratios significantly by the 

time you get to the worker. 

DR. NETON: Right. Thanks for that 

clarification, Cindy. I was going to -- going 

to mention that, but interesting analyses are -

- and honestly, for -- if Joe Guido's on the 

phone, I know he's been trying to pull out 
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raffinate workers. He's having difficulty 

finding what we consider raffinate workers 

without ra-- corresponding radon breath data. 

There's a fair amount of that available. It 

turns out, as Cindy said, that the radon breath 

data do -- do bound the radium intakes for 

these workers considerably, much -- much -- not 

much low-- well, a fair amount lower than what 

you would infer from using the K-65 ratios, so 

that --

MS. BLOOM: By a factor of 20. 

DR. NETON: Yeah, it's -- it's lower, and I 

think we feel pretty good that at a minimum the 

K-65 ratios will bound the intakes, and at best 

we may be able to use these radon intakes -- or 

the radon breath analyses to -- to actually 

define the intake for radon -- radium. But we 

need -- we need to demonstrate that and prove 

that a little more conclusively if we're going 

to go down that path. 

Did I hear someone want to make a comment on 

that or... 

 (No responses) 

DR. NETON: Okay. So we -- we've made very 

good progress in those areas. Related to 
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sufficient data available for radon dosimetry -

- radon exposure estimates, we have looked at 

the radon -- the 5000 plus radon points that we 

have in the CER database, and I don't know if I 

reported on this at the Board meeting or not, 

but these data, by year, fit a fairly decent 

lognormal distribution, as well. And more 

importantly, if one goes into the description 

of where the samples were taken, we do have 

pretty good descriptions of where they were. 

mean they're -- they're identified by feinc 

filter press or a digester area or a furnace. 

So in effect, it seems to me that most of the 

samples in those 5000 sets were taken in or 

near Plant 6, which makes some sense. This is 

where the radium source term was present. 

So we've done some -- some more detailed 

analyses by job category or work location in 

the plant as to what the distributions are at 

the higher -- higher potential exposure 

locations, so the -- the story, though, remains 

to be seen as to how -- how much detail we can 

assign to these radon exposures. At this point 

we're at -- at best only be able to propose 

that we would assign a distribution of radon -- 

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assign a distribution of exposures between 

people who worked in the plants and people who 

most likely did not frequent the plants, such 

as administrative folks. We're still working 

on trying to make a determination if we can 

refine the in-plant exposures to radon into 

what we would call a high and low exposure 

groupings. 

In any case, all these groupings would be by a 

distribution, not a specific value. For 

example, we would propose the 95th percentile 

radon distribution for the higher exposure 

category if that's indeed where they fell out. 

So we have plenty of data to do this. One 

would think that this would result in really 

large radon exposure, and it turns out that the 

radon exposures were very significant in the 

first several years, the '49-'50 time frame, 

and dropped off quite precipitously after that. 

So you know, you don't run into the situation 

of having these huge, massive exposures over 

the entire duration of the cohort. I guess 

that's probably neither here nor there, but I 

do want to point out that we do have very large 

exposures in the early days, which -- which 
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makes sense. And as controls got better and 

some of the pitchblende content was reduced in 

radium, the exposures went down. 

That leads me into the other area of the radon 

dosimetry issue which had to do with the 

calculation of internal exposures, non-lungrelated exposures from inhalation of radon and 

progeny. We've taken a look at the SC&A 

calculations and, while they're correct in what 

they have done, the approach of using this dose 

conversion factor -- we believe that at least 

in ICRP-71 where they provide these factors 

there's some specific guidance that says that 

these should not be applied to use of radon 

daughters, or radon progeny. And in fact we --

we've researched this a little further and have 

found some -- a publication by, I think I 

mentioned this at the Board meeting, Marshall 

and Burchell -- Alan Burchell of course is a 

well-recognized expert in the radon dosimetry 

arena -- where they have determined the halflife of lead and bismuth in the lung to be 

somewhere -- ten and 13 years, respectively -- 

hours, I'm sorry. Not years, hours. That is a 

huge difference in the amount of dose delivered 
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to the systemic organs. 

I believe that the type F, the intake 

calculations that were in the SC&A proposal, 

would -- would essentially inject ten -- 

material -- almost all the material went into 

the bloodstream with a ten-minute half-life or 

something like that. And we -- we -- we've 

redone all these calculations and -- and 

modeled -- we specifically modeled the ICRP 

calculations, which is using the ICRP lung 

model using the method proposed by Burchell, 

and have concluded that the doses to the organs 

-- the systemic organs are -- are much lower 

than those proposed at least by SC&A using our 

approach. 

Now that said, there's still a couple of organs 

that are higher than the -- the radon gas model 

that we had proposed at the Board meeting. 

There's a number of publications out there, and 

it's pretty well recognized that a major source 

to systemic organs from radon exposure -- the -

- the major source would be from the deposi-- 

or the -- the absorption of radon gas in the 

soft tissues and the ultimate decay of the gas 

through the progeny chain in the -- in the 
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organs themselves. There's some solubility 

coefficients that can be applied and -- there's 

a couple of really excellent papers out there. 

Naomi Harley has one and there's another paper, 

I forget the person's name right now, but it's 

a pretty good -- what they call a dynamic 

model. 

In almost all organs that we modeled using the 

radon gas deposition model, I think the doses 

for the particulate using the method that I 

just described are about two percent of the -- 

two to three percent of the radon gas doses, 

the notable exceptions being the kidney and the 

gastrointestinal tract. I think 

(unintelligible) still proposing to use the 

radon gas model to estimate doses. In fact, 

the doses are not super-significant. I think 

they -- I wouldn't be quoted on this. Of 

course this is probably recorded, but it's 

somewhere around a couple millirem to the organ 

per picocurie per liter from the radon gas. Is 

that right, Dave? I -- I'm just -- just to 

give you a sense of what these doses might be. 

MR. ALLEN: (Unintelligible) millirem per year 

for gas. 
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DR. NETON: All right, I'm sorry. It's less --

it's about .6 of a pic-- of a millirem per year 

per picocurie per liter of the gas. Of course 

that's -- in -- that's -- that's irrespective 

of equilibrium ratios because we're just 

talking about the gas. And then the -- the 

progeny doses are around .02 to .03 millirem 

per year. But the kidney values are -- are 

larger. You could get about 1.2 millirem per 

year to the kidney from the -- actually the 

progeny dissolving in the lung and becoming 

systemic. 

So we -- we're going to -- we'll have a model 

to -- to address this and -- and how we will -- 

you know, we'll propose the model and put this 

forward and it -- we propose to add these doses 

to -- to the -- to the dose reconstruction as 

appropriate based on the radon exposure 

distributions we'll apply in the plants. We 

don't expect those still to be tremendously 

high doses, though, compared to the intakes 

that would result from the raffinate materials. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. 

MS. BLOOM: I don't know if it's appropriate to 

weigh in here, but I know that one concern that 
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I -- or one -- one -- not a concern, but I -- I 

think that this is excellent work, and 

certainly those numbers are of interest. But I 

think when we're finding they're so low and we 

have so much -- we're pretty convinced that our 

ratios that we're applying to the other 

radionuclides are pretty large, the question 

comes up, do we really need to take this extra 

step in dose reconstruction on every case to 

add in these essentially trivial doses, for the 

most part. And so that's -- that's one 

question that I think needs to be out there, as 

well. 

DR. NETON: That's a good point, Cindy. I 

don't think we'll (unintelligible) probably 

address this and then solve this in this call, 

but --

 MR. GRIFFON: Right. Right, and my sense is if 

this -- you know, we come to some agreement on 

the model, then -- then we can have that 

discussion --

DR. NETON: Right. 

MS. BLOOM: That it's (unintelligible). 

 MR. GRIFFON: -- (unintelligible) and whether 

it's appropriate or not, yeah. 
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DR. NETON: Right. I mean if you look -- if 

you have .6 picocuries per liter -- you know, 

if you have 100 picocuries per liter assigned 

year -- you know, 24 -- 

 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 

DR. NETON: -- year round, your 66 picocur-- 66 

millirem is not a huge dose when some of these 

raffinate doses, even to non-systemic organs, 

are going to end up being probably on the order 

of -- of below rem ranges, even the non-- even 

the non-metabolic organs. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 

DR. NETON: So -- but we -- we can deal with 

that, but we -- we'd like to get our approach 

in writing and out there for folks to -- to 

evaluate it. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. 

 DR. MAKHIJANI: Could I make a request? This 

is Arjun. 

DR. NETON: Sure. 

 DR. MAKHIJANI: For the references that you're 

using to develop this approach so we can also 

get them and be looking at them in parallel as 

you're doing this and -- 

DR. NETON: Sure. 
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 MR. GRIFFON: (Unintelligible) 

 DR. MAKHIJANI: -- (unintelligible) 

DR. NETON: Do you want them right now, or... 

 DR. MAKHIJANI: Well, if you can just send them 

in an e-mail --

DR. NETON: Okay, I will send them -- 

 DR. MAKHIJANI: -- to the working group and -- 

and to us, that would be -- that would be 

useful. 

DR. NETON: Absolutely. 

 DR. MAKHIJANI: Thank you. 

DR. NETON: This is actually very cutting edge 

material. I mean there -- there's a lot of -- 

not a lot of work has been going -- done in 

this area, and -- and most of it's been done to 

refine the dose to the lung using the ICRP-66 

(unintelligible) model. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Right. 

DR. NETON: We're using it for the -- for the 

systemics. It's applicable, and I think that 

we got a -- a fairly decent handle on it. 

Okay, item number three, which is the 

application of correction factors for external 

doses to organs, Tim Taulbee and Greg Macievic 

-- Greg is the one -- I presented the 
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information at the last Board meeting -- who 

used the Attila code to estimate relative 

photon fluxes between a lapel badge and the 

lower torso in specific response to different 

geometries. Tim has worked closely with Greg 

and they've put together what we call a 

Technical Information Bulletin, a TIB. That's 

in draft form now. And we are proposing, based 

on their analysis, that doses for -- external 

doses for specific categories of workers at 

Mallinckrodt be multiplied by a correction 

factor of 2.1 for organs that are below the 

lung. That is organs residing in the lower 

torso area, and we've very specifically 

delineated which those might be. 

The trickier part then is to determine which 

workers this correction factor would apply to. 

Tim has gone through the claims that we have 

in-house to process and has determined that the 

individual job categories we have are -- how 

would you say it, Tim? -- are too -- too narrow 

in focus or narrow in scope to be able to make 

a determination on an individual job category 

(unintelligible) category. 

 MR. TAULBEE: Right. 
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DR. NETON: And maybe you could explain what 

you've done. 

 MR. TAULBEE: Sure. In going through the 

worker -- work history information, as well as 

their dust concentration cards, you get a feel 

for what individual workers were doing. 

However, it's pretty clear that some of their 

jobs were near -- what we would call near-hand 

exposure fields, and other jobs were not. So 

you've got a mixture within a particular worker 

over their time period where sometimes they 

were close-handling materials, other times they 

were not. And so it's really not possible to 

break out in more detail which of those nearhand exposure fields had contributed to their 

lapel dose more than other exposures did. So 

what we're proposing is, just based upon 

general worker categories such as operators or 

the crafts, that we would assign this 

correction factor to. And this makes up a 

population of about 57 percent of the current 

claims that we have and we wouldn't be applying 

this type of correction factor to any 

administrative personnel -- accountants, 

secretaries, cafeteria workers (unintelligible) 
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sort of thing. So this would only be applied 

to those people who worked in the plants, the 

chemical production operators, material 

handlers, and then each of the crafts -- the 

pipe fitters, the carpenters, the sheet metal 

workers, et cetera. 

 MS. WESTBROOK: This is Janet Westbrook. Did 

you look in the AEC and Mallinckrodt dust study 

reports where they in fact break down what the 

workers were doing, and even sometimes tell you 

how far away they were? 

 MR. TAULBEE: Yes, I did, Janet. I had looked 

at that. The problem that you end up with is 

that in some cases, even though it was a short 

duration type of an exposure, you don't know 

what the external dose rate coming off of the 

object was at that time period without going 

through the survey data -- the individual 

survey data and trying to marry that up with 

that particular time (unintelligible) just be 

very cumbersome. 

DR. NETON: It becomes a very practical 

limiting factor at that point. 

(Unintelligible) that's our proposal. Again, 

this is -- this is not a finalized -- it's a 
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draft proposal, but this is where we are. 

Again, this is all works in progress here. 

(Unintelligible) any of this represents our 

final -- final solution to any of these issues. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Jim, just a -- a process question 

here. The -- the TIB that you just mentioned 

and the proposal --

DR. NETON: Right. 

 MR. GRIFFON: -- is there any way that could be 

provided in draft form before the face-to-face 

meeting next week? 

DR. NETON: I think so. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. I think that would be 

good, so people can look at it and digest it a 

little further and --

 MS. MUNN: That would be very helpful. 

DR. NETON: Right, yeah, I -- I'm struggling, I 

didn't -- a lot of this stuff is being 

developed, you know, as we speak, so I don't 

want to send out too draft material. But I 

think we're at the point where with this TIB I 

feel comfortable sharing it. And we could talk 

about how widely (unintelligible) they need to 

do that and -- you know, like I said, we can 

just refine the process after we go through our 
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-- our process here. 

 MR. GRIFFON: That's fine. 

DR. NETON: In the area of intermittent 

exposures and incidents, we're still working on 

that and Dave's gone through some examples. We 

know what we need to do. We just need to find 

the right -- the right bracketing examples to -

- to make the case, you know, for ourselves. 

So it -- we -- we're comfortable and confident 

that we will have this done in fairly short 

order, but it's just not -- not something right 

now that we're prepared to -- nor would it 

actually be conducive to discussion on a 

telephone call. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 

DR. NETON: So I will -- we -- we will have 

some examples to -- to (unintelligible) show. 

This number five -- let me just look at four 

again to make sure I didn't miss something. 

Yeah, that's -- that's essentially -- 

 MR. GRIFFON: Jim, for four, I think that would 

be good. When we're in Cincinnati that would 

be something that you could (unintelligible) 

there for us. 

DR. NETON: Yeah. 
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 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, okay. 

DR. NETON: Yeah, we'll have graphs and 

pictures. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 

DR. NETON: Pictures are the best descriptors. 

I've got four or five examples, but I'm working 

with Dave trying to come up with the best -- 

best possible examples to elucidate this. 

 Number five, specification of dose 

reconstruction for unmonitored workers, we 

looked through every single page of the -- 

actually Tim Taulbee -- I'll give credit where 

it's due -- looked through every single pages 

of the six boxes and really could only find I 

think one or two pages of documents that talked 

about environmental exposures at Mallinckrodt. 

I believe that they were just -- not just, but 

stack emission reports. I -- I was hoping that 

we would find something a little more of 

substance like, you know, area monitoring data 

around the site or something like that. But 

there's very little that we'll be able to do 

with stack emission reports, unless we missed 

something and there's additional data out 

there. 
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Absent any additional information, we're going 

to propose to use the -- the coworker -- the 

worker distributions at Mallinckrodt for people 

who were unmonitored and we have no other way 

to -- to assess their exposures. If we can 

determine, for example, that they were more 

administrative type or had lower exposure job 

categories than the monitored workers, we would 

propose to apply the full distribution of the 

coworker data. As our know, our -- our 

approach lately has been when the worker is -- 

is more heavily exposed or -- or was -- should 

have been monitored, we would apply the 95th 

percentile distribution. For this particular 

instance we would apply -- we would apply the -

- the distribution of the coworker data and 

assume that that person falls somewhere in that 

distribution. That's as fine -- finely tuned 

as we can make this at this time. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Can I ask, Jim --

DR. NETON: Yeah. 

 MR. GRIFFON: This is Mark Griffon. Arjun had 

raised this -- this -- Arjun had mentioned that 

you -- he found some additional data. Arjun, I 

mean if you -- if you have the references or 
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the specific pages out of those six boxes, I 

think you said that some of it was in there, 

maybe you can --

DR. NETON: Right. 

 MR. GRIFFON: -- share that with NIOSH so that 

-- we're not -- at least consider it, you know. 

Maybe it's still that you'll use that same 

approach that you mentioned, but at least so 

that everyone's on the same page here. 

 MR. TAULBEE: I guess -- this is -- this is Tim 

Taulbee. I have a question I guess for Arjun. 

Is there -- what you were talking about at the 

Advisory Board, is it anything other than these 

stack emission estimates of the pounds of 

uranium within those boxes? 

 DR. MAKHIJANI: No, Tim, I did not find 

anything other than -- I gave the reference to 

the document --

 MR. TAULBEE: Okay. 

 DR. MAKHIJANI: -- in -- in the report, and -- 

and I don't -- and I haven't gone through -- 

I'm sure NIOSH has gone through the boxes a lot 

more thoroughly than I did. I did not find 

anything else. And emissions estimate is a 

partial emissions estimate. 
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And my other observation that I'd just like to 

make, which I think I made at the Board 

meeting, is generally whenever these estimates 

have been gone over in more recent times, 

they've always been found to be underestimates. 

And so it -- it's -- the emissions are 

indicated to be pretty significant from the 

stacks and would, you know, affect outside 

workers. And I don't -- so my question really 

relates to (unintelligible) you calculate the 

outside doses on the people who were moving 

things around and loading and unloading and who 

may not have been monitored and so on. 

 MR. TAULBEE: Okay. 

 MR. GRIFFON: It sounds like we're talking 

about the same data, anyway. 

DR. NETON: Again, I think that there's very 

little that we're going to be able to do with 

stack emission data like that. I think 

proposing -- you know, our proposal to use the 

50th -- the full distribution of the coworker 

data that we have I think is a reasonable 

approach. 

We -- we have gone through, by the way, and 

developed coworker (unintelligible) 
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distributions by year (unintelligible) workers 

and Cindy and Joe and others at ORAU are 

working through those things now and developing 

our approaches somewhat. We've elucidated a 

little bit, to the extent we're doing that 

using the radon breath data to bound some of 

these intakes for uranium and -- we actually 

are also going to propose, I believe, that if 

we do not have bioassay data for workers -- if 

you remember, I reported at the Board meeting 

that we had at least one bioassay sample for I 

think it was around 80 percent of the claims 

that we have to process. Those -- those cases 

where we have no bioassay data, we will -- we 

propose now that we would use the coworker 

urine distributions to estimate intakes rather 

than to default to the air sample data. 

A couple of reasons for that. One is this --

the radon breath bounding analysis indicates 

that the air data are probably largely 

overestimates of the intakes, and we just 

believe that sticking closer to bioassay data 

is a more prudent thing to do. It's -- it 

gives you a better picture as to what the 

actual intakes were since you're measuring what 
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-- what the people actually breathed. And 

that's -- that's a proposal that we have out 

there. 

Okay. One other thing on number five is 

there's a issue related to SLAPS workers. We -

- we've talked among ourselves about this a 

fair amount and it's our opinion that the 

workers who were at the SLAPS facility -- 

UNIDENTIFIED: I have a question. 

DR. NETON: Yes? 

(NOTE: The ensuing conversation had no 

relation to the teleconference but resulted 

from malfunctioning telephone lines allowing 

other parties to become included on the subject 

call.) 

 MS. MUNN: We can hardly hear you. 

 DR. WADE: I think -- is this related to the -- 

to our call on the radiation board? 

DR. NETON: It almost sounds like we have two 

calls going on at the same time. 

 DR. WADE: Yeah, why don't -- I'm sorry about 

that. Why don't you continue, Jim. 

DR. NETON: The SLAPS workers we -- we believe 

were not assigned there full time. In fact, 

they spent a large, if not the majority of 
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their time working in a plant. So if that's 

the case, then we believe assigning the plant 

distributions or the -- the monitoring data to 

them would be a reasonable approach. 

 Okay, getting down to number six, the example 

dose reconstructions, ORAU has pulled a number 

of cases. I don't -- I've forgotten the number 

now, but Joe, help me out here -- 

MR. GUIDO: Yeah. 

DR. NETON: -- is it eight? 

MR. GUIDO: There's nine raffinate workers and 

eight thorium workers that I identified that 

are currently claimants that fit some criteria 

that -- basically they're definitely either 

raffinate or thorium workers, either because 

they had very high external exposure and breath 

radon monitoring, and had descriptors with 

their bioassay data which definitely -- folks 

handling those materials. Or, for the thorium 

workers, those were a little easier. There's 

some ionium bioassay chain of custody forms 

that we've located, and so those clearly 

indicate people handling the thorium materials, 

or people who had uranium samples with 

descriptors that said ME process or Plant 7E, 
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so --

DR. NETON: Right. I'm sorry, go ahead. 

 MS. MUNN: This is Wanda. I was just 

commenting that was good news to have that kind 

of data. 

DR. NETON: Right. So the thorium bioassay 

data we have at least for seven workers from -- 

seven or eight, I forgot what Joe said -- 

MR. GUIDO: It's seven workers with ionium 

bioassay. There -- there's a couple other 

workers that were identified as Plant 7E on 

other -- through other means that did not have 

bioassay, but -- and these are claimants. I 

mean I'm not talk-- there's probably more that 

were on the sheets, but I'm talking about 

actual claimants, current claimants. 

DR. NETON: Okay, so we -- we pulled those and 

Joe's been working diligently to -- to start 

the dose reconstructions using the data we 

have, and I -- I believe I would characterize 

these as fairly well-monitored workers, if I 

could use that term. And Joe's going to 

develop the distribution, the uranium intakes 

and then the radium intakes based on the 

activity ratios that we propose using the 
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Fernald silos, and then come -- came up also 

with radium intakes based on the radon breath 

analyses that we have for these folks. And 

then I think we can go and pull away parts of 

the data and then demonstrate what we would do 

if those data points were not there, which I 

think is one of the, you know, concerns and -- 

and how that would change the picture and the 

relative magnitude of the intakes. 

I think since we're now going with coworker 

urine data to a large extent, I don't suspect 

that things are going to change too much. It 

keeps us from having to use some of these very 

large air concentration results which, even 

when I talked at the Board meeting last time, I 

demonstrated to a large extent the air 

concentration data were -- were somewhat 

higher, that they were general area samples 

that had not really intended to indicate worker 

intakes. But --

MR. GUIDO: Jim, this is Joe Guido. I wanted 

to interject something here -- 

DR. NETON: Sure. 

MR. GUIDO: -- too. It's my intention also in 

doing the dose reconstructions, the radon 
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breath monitoring data -- not only does it 

bound the -- the radium intake that's 

associated through those ratios, but it -- but 

it also -- my intention is also to use it to 

bound the -- the thorium -- you know, the other 

progeny that in the ratios, like the thorium -- 

DR. NETON: Right, yeah, I --

MR. GUIDO: -- (unintelligible) even actinium. 

I just wanted to make sure -- you know, get 

that out there, make sure that -- 

DR. NETON: Good point, Joe. I think it's 

reasonable -- it's a reasonable approximation 

to say that once we know what the bounding 

radium intake was and scale the progeny in 

relation to the radium based on what we see in 

the silo material. By the way, there -- 

there's a fair amount of thorium-230 -- I was 

surprised -- in the airport -- in the K-65 

material. 

 MS. WESTBROOK: Could I interject something? 

This is Janet Westbrook. With regard to the 

yard, you know they did take some dust samples 

(unintelligible) workers (unintelligible) there 

in the yard, in the guard tower and so forth, 

so that they could calculate those exposures 
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for those particular job categories, so we do 

have some yard air data. And not only that -- 

oh, I forget, Neton just said something and I 

wanted to speak to that a little bit, but I -- 

the moment passed. Sorry about that. But 

anyway, we -- we do have a little yard data, 

but we don't -- have no environmental 

(unintelligible). 

DR. NETON: Right, I appreciate that, Janet. 

We'll have to take a look at that and see if 

it's -- gives us enough robustness to 

extrapolate to workers throughout the site and 

by year and such. It might give us some -- a 

good feel for bracketing, you know, values. 

Let's see, where was I with -- I think I've 

covered pretty much where we are, so I -- I 

hope you feel we've made -- we've made a lot of 

progress. I mean we've been -- folks -- and I 

give credit to all the folks at ORAU and NIOSH 

that have really been burning the midnight oil 

to -- to bring this to completion, and we look 

forward to resolution of these issues. 

 MR. GRIFFON: That -- that -- that sounds good, 

Jim. I -- I was going to ask -- 'cause I think 

I'm going to have to pull off this call in 
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about ten minutes, but one thing I wanted to do 

before I left the call was to talk about the 

next -- the face-to-face meeting when I think 

we'll see some of your -- your final products 

here, or -- or near final products, anyway. 

DR. NETON: Sure. 

 MR. GRIFFON: And I wondered if we can finalize 

a date on that. I was hoping for August 3rd or 

4th. I don't know how that times works for the 

other workgroup members or NIOSH. 

 DR. WADE: Well, I would ask for the 4th. 

 MR. GRIFFON: The 4th, yeah. 

 DR. WADE: Could I poll the workgroup members 

and -- and get a sense -- Mike a meeting on the 

4th in Cincinnati? 

 MR. GIBSON: Yeah, the (unintelligible) -- 

yeah, the 4th looks okay. 

 DR. WADE: Okay. Wanda? 

 MS. MUNN: The 4th is fine. 

 DR. WADE: Jim? 

 DR. MELIUS: Yeah, I can do the 4th. 

 DR. WADE: Okay. And Mark, obviously you can 

do the 4th. Okay --

 MR. GRIFFON: And I was thinking we could start 

it, you know, late enough that people can 
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travel in that morning -- at least myself. 

 MS. MUNN: With one exception. 

 MR. GRIFFON: With one exception, right. 

 DR. WADE: What time were you aiming for, Mark? 

 MR. GRIFFON: I -- I -- I think 9:00, 9:30, 

10:00, you know -- probably -- maybe 9:30. 

 DR. WADE: Okay, let's say 9:30 a.m. on the 

4th. That's next Thursday. Again --

DR. NETON: Mark, do we -- do we feel this will 

be a full -- full day meeting or... 

 MS. MUNN: I suspect it'll be close to it -- 

this is Wanda. That's just my guess. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, my sense is I think it may 

take some ti-- you know, by the time you -- 

DR. NETON: I don't want to shorten it, I just 

want to plan for, you know, what my schedule 

might be. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, I believe it will be -- I'm 

assuming it will be close to a full day, yeah. 

 DR. WADE: Is LaShawn on this call? 

 MS. SHIELDS: Yes, sir, I'm here. 

 DR. WADE: And we're -- we're sure we have 

coverage in terms of having a reporter there to 

take the transcript. 

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have it. 

 DR. WADE: Okay, thank you. 

 MS. SHIELDS: Sure. 

DR. NETON: I guess I didn't hear anybody from 

ORAU, the significant people that might 

participate. 

 DR. WADE: SC&A? 

DR. MAURO: It's John Mauro. I can make it. 

Arjun, are you available? 

 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yes, yes, I can be there. 

 DR. WADE: Okay. We'll have to work out 

location, but let's assume it will be 9:30 next 

Wednesday, the 4th of August, in Cincinnati. 

And we'll get back to you with location. 

UNIDENTIFIED: (Unintelligible) that's a 

Thursday. 

 DR. WADE: I'm sorry, Thursday the 4th. 

UNIDENTIFIED: Yes, correct. 

 DR. WADE: I'm sorry if I misspoke, Thursday 

the 4th at 9:30 a.m. 

MS. BROCK: And this is Denise Brock. I'm 

hoping someone can get back with me, as well, 

so I know where it's located at. 

 DR. WADE: Okay. We shall, Denise. Does that 

time work for you, as well? 
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MS. BROCK: That's fine, certainly. 

 DR. WADE: Okay, thank you. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Okay. 

 DR. WADE: Are there other time frames we need 

to work out, Mark, while we have you on? 

 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, I -- I -- the only other 

thing I -- I -- looking at your e-mail, Lew, 

that the discussion of the first time line that 

you went through sort of, I'm -- I'm assuming 

that -- that we're still -- that's still going 

to work with everyone? We sort of have that 

one deadline, anyway, of the -- of the Board 

meeting itself --

 DR. WADE: Right. 

 MR. GRIFFON: -- so there's not a lot of 

flexibility in there. But I think everybody's 

still on line with those time frames. It 

sounds like -- Jim, it does sound like you've 

made a lot of progress on this. 

DR. NETON: Yeah, I recognize -- I'd like to 

get these work products out as soon as possible 

so that people can have at least some heads-up 

before the Board -- before the meeting on the 

3rd -- or the 4th, I'm sorry. And if it's 

okay, these are going to maybe come out, you 
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know, as I can issue them. 

 MR. GRIFFON: That -- that's fi-- I mean -- 

DR. NETON: (Unintelligible) I've got a way to 

do that. 

 MR. GRIFFON: -- understandable, you know, 

yeah. Yeah. 

DR. NETON: So -- and some of them will be -- 

be in draft form -- again, subject to change, 

but at least you'll -- you'll get our -- a 

sense of our line of thinking on this and be 

better prepared to discuss the issues. 

 DR. MAKHIJANI: Generally by July 31st, Jim? 

This is Arjun? 

DR. NETON: Yeah, I'll -- Arjun, that was our -

- our deliverable date to you guys and I will 

get as many, if not all, of them to you by -- 

out by -- by then. I assume I (unintelligible) 

those to the Board members. 

 DR. MAKHIJANI: I had one question on radon 

breath that was -- will -- will there be 

included some assessment of the validity of 

this data since there were questions about at 

least a part of it? 

MS. BLOOM: In terms of questions, could you -- 

 DR. MAKHIJANI: Well --
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MS. BLOOM: -- (unintelligible) of what that 

means? 

 DR. MAKHIJANI: -- I -- I referred to some of 

it in the -- we referred to some of it in the -

- in the report that we filed. It 

(unintelligible) reference (unintelligible). 

DR. NETON: Yeah, I'm familiar with what you're 

speaking of, Arjun --

 DR. MAKHIJANI: Yeah, great. 

DR. NETON: -- and I know of at least -- 

there's two issues. There's -- one is --

there's the zero issue and then the other issue 

was that -- the data came into question, but 

everything that I've read thus far only 

indicates that it would -- (unintelligible) the 

inclusion of background radon in the results 

which would lead to higher estimates than lower 

estimates. 

 DR. MAKHIJANI: Okay. But you have something 

there on it. 

UNIDENTIFIED: But it was only in the early 

years, the years as a SEC class. Right? 

DR. NETON: I'm not sure. We'll address it, 

though. We'll -- we'll take a look at that. 

And you're right, Arjun, we need to -- we need 
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to close that loop. 

 DR. MAKHIJANI: Thank you. 

DR. NETON: You're welcome. 

DR. MAURO: This is John Mauro. Lew, could you 

confirm the full Board meeting location and 

dates? Has that been published? 

 DR. WADE: Yeah, I mean the location is St. 

Louis, Missouri and the dates are -- although 

they haven't been announced, it's our intent of 

the 25th and 26th of August. 

DR. MAURO: Thank you. 

 DR. WADE: Mark, anything else you think we 

need to --

 MR. GRIFFON: No, I -- I -- you know, I think 

we've covered most of it. I mean really with -

- that's exactly what we wanted was kind of a 

status report, and I think everybody knows what 

we need to bring to next week's meeting, so 

that's -- it sounds like we're on a pretty good 

schedule here. 

 DR. ZIEMER: Mark? 

 MR. GRIFFON: Do any other workgroup members 

have anything to add? 

 DR. ZIEMER: Mark? 

 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah. 
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 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, Paul Ziemer here. I -- I 

was only able to get on sort of at the tail end 

of the discussion, but I just wanted to make 

sure that the workgroup has everything and 

you're satisfied with where we are on the 

schedule. This was more of a status report 

meeting, really. 

 MR. GRIFFON: That's right, and I think -- I 

think Jim -- Jim's just committed to getting 

these deliverables to us before the -- 

 DR. ZIEMER: Right. 

 MR. GRIFFON: -- the face-to-face meeting next 

week. 

 DR. WADE: I think with -- Paul, on the call, 

though, we do have a quorum of the Board, so I 

think we need to --

DR. ROESSLER: Lew, I'm going to hang up. 

 DR. WADE: Thank you. Okay, sorry about that. 

I just -- they -- they pay me to watch that. 

 MR. GRIFFON: I (unintelligible) thinking of 

that. 

 DR. WADE: Okay. Paul, did you get your 

question answered? 

 DR. ZIEMER: Yeah, I just wanted to make sure 

that the -- that things were on schedule for 
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the face-to-face meeting coming up of the 

workgroup. 

 DR. WADE: Okay. 

 MR. GRIFFON: It sounds like we are on 

schedule. 

 MS. MUNN: And this is Wanda. I want to thank 

both the NIOSH and the SC&A people who have put 

in so much work on this. It's obvious there's 

been an awful lot of work since the last 

meeting and thank you. I know how tight that 

time schedule is on it. 

 DR. WADE: Thank you, Wanda. 

 MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, I think that goes for all 

of us. We appreciate your effort to get -- you 

know, to meet these tight time frames. 

 DR. WADE: Does anyone else wish to make a 

comment? 

 MS. WESTBROOK: I -- this is Janet Westbrook. 

I did remember what I -- earlier. Dr. Neton 

said something about all these samples were GA, 

but some of them in this -- were particularly 

high dose levels, they were breathing zone 

samples. 

DR. NETON: You're right, Janet. I stand 

corrected. 
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 DR. WADE: Okay, thank you. Okay, Mark, with 

your permission, I think we will conclude our 

business here. Again, there will be a 

transcript of this available. I can't promise 

the time frame, but you will hear from us 

within the next day or so as to the precise 

arrangements for the meeting next week in 

Cincinnati. I think --

 MR. GRIFFON: Unless any of the workgroup 

members have anything to add, that's -- that's 

fine, Lew. Does anyone else have any comments? 

 MR. GIBSON: No, I don't. I think we're --

 MS. MUNN: Sounds like we're done. 

 DR. WADE: Thank you all very much. 

 MR. GRIFFON: All right. Thanks a lot. 

(Whereupon, the meeting was concluded.) 
_____________________ 

58 

C E R T I F I C A T E OF COURT REPORTER 

STATE OF GEORGIA 

COUNTY OF FULTON 

 I, Steven Ray Green, Certified Merit Court 

Reporter, do hereby certify that I transcribed 

the above and foregoing from the day of Jul. 

26, 2005; and it is a true and accurate 

transcript of the testimony captioned herein. 

 I further certify that I am neither kin 

nor counsel to any of the parties herein, nor 

have any interest in the cause named herein. 

 WITNESS my hand and official seal this the 

29th day of August, 2005. 

STEVEN RAY GREEN, CCR 

CERTIFIED MERIT COURT REPORTER 

CERTIFICATE NUMBER: A-2102